Soldier No More Page 18

  Roche frowned at her. “What rapists?”

  “No rapists,” said Jilly. “Honestly, Lexy—you’re the limit!”

  “Well, they could be rapists for all you know.”

  “Rapees, more like, if you have anything to do with them!” Jilly turned with a shake of her head from Lexy to Roche. “There are these gypsy-types we’ve spotted in the wood—“

  “Saw them again yesterday, too—skulking up behind the old dovecote, down towards David’s place,” said Lexy firmly. “And I’ve seen them further afield, too.”

  “They won’t be the same ones,” snapped Jilly.

  “They were the same ones. It was when Steffy and I were collecting the bread. I saw them.” Lexy didn’t budge.

  “And they were following you?”

  “That I can’t say, they were stationary at the time. But they were the same ones, because they’ve got an old motor-bike and a couple of battered old pop-pop mopeds they swan around on.”

  Jilly sighed. “Well, they’re a bit slow, getting down to the job then! We’ve each been on our own here often enough!”

  “They’re casing the joint,” said Lexy airily. “I think we ought to tell La Peyrony—or, better still, David Audley. He’ll sort them out!”

  “I’ve no doubt he would! And you’re the sort of person who gets innocent youths lynched during the sorting process.” Jilly turned to Roche again. “They look about sixteen years of age, and they’re about half Lexy’s size put together—and a quarter of David Audley’s—and a hundredth as dangerous. And they’re probably from down south, just looking for casual work and living rough meanwhile, poor kids.”

  Another thing about Jilly, thought Roche, was that she didn’t scare easily. Although she hardly came up to Lady Alexandra’s shoulder, it wasn’t Jilly who needed protection, it was Lexy.

  But it was also Lexy for whom he was supposed to be making a play, although he had not done much with his opportunities so far, he remembered.

  He looked around the area of the cottage with a suitably protective air. The steep-pitched dark-grey slate roof of the Peyrony mansion could be seen through the trees to its left, but otherwise it was enclosed by thick woods on either side of the roadway. As a holiday-house it had a Perrault fairy-tale look, with its browny-pink pantiles and tiny windows set in dormers and thick stone walls. But as a refuge for three pretty girls in a foreign country, with strange young males in the woods roundabout, it had its disadvantages: other than the Peyrony place, there didn’t seem to be another house in sight.

  “You are rather isolated, aren’t you?” he said gently, trying not to take sides too obviously.

  “Oh no, David darling,” said Lexy lightly. “We’re within easy screaming distance of Madame Peyrony, who is not a day older than seventy … and old Angelique … and there’s Gaston, who undoubtedly remembers Waterloo, if not the battle of Agincourt—“

  “Gaston’s as tough as an old boot, and as strong as an ox,” protested Jilly.

  “Gaston?” queried Roche.

  “La Peyrony’s wrinkled retainer—old Angelique’s antique brother,” explained Lexy sweetly.

  “Younger brother,” corrected Jilly. “He’s Madame’s handyman-gardener—“

  “Younger … meaning he was a hero of Verdun, or somewhere, in the First World War, darling.”

  “That’s right! And with a chestful of medals—David Audley says he was the finest trench-mortar-man in the whole French Army—and the Cross of the Liberation too.” Jilly turned to Roche. “Back in 1944 he sat on the ridge above Brivay and held up a German column for six hours with his mortar, David says.”

  “Yes. And he’s still got his private arsenal up in the stable, above his bedroom,” Lexy mocked her friend. “But now he’s got a gammy leg and he’s rather short of breath with his asthma, and you have to shout at him to make him hear … But there’s always little Gaston, his grandson—or maybe great grandson—little Gaston can always let him know when we start screaming. So we’ve got nothing to worry about…. Not that I really care, anyway. What’s a fate worse than death between friends?”

  “They’re just boys, Lexy—“

  “Okay—so they’re just boys! Innocent little nut-brown boys!” Lexy shrugged. “At least let David here escort us while we’ve got him. Just let me get my bag, and we’ll go.”

  “No,” said Jilly.

  “Why not? I don’t see why we should kick our heels until Steffy deigns to put in an appearance, for heaven’s sake! Just because she’s gone out on the tiles again—“

  “It’s not Steffy.” Jilly shook her head in despair. “You’ve clean forgotten why I sent you to go and get your new David already, haven’t you? It’s because Madame has summoned him to her boudoir, that’s why.” Jilly switched apologetically to Roche. “And I’m afraid you must go, David—if only to improve our image with her, to lend us a touch of respectability, let’s say—and she will give you a drink, too.”

  Roche didn’t have to pretend to look unwilling. He didn’t want to waste any more time before getting to ‘The Tower’, where the action must be; and he didn’t want to jump through any hoops for another version of Madame Goutard, anyway; and he certainly didn’t want another drink, of any description.

  “I’m afraid you must go,” repeated Jilly.

  “Well, I’m jolly well not going!” exclaimed Lexy. “Not even to improve my image, darn it!”

  “And just as well, Lady Alexandra,” said Jilly severely. “What you’re going to do is to go to the bathroom and improve your image there. You look like something out of the black-and-white minstrel show pulled backwards through a hedge.”

  “Oh God! Do I?” Lexy put her hand to her face, and then to her hair, and then studied the hand with dismay.

  “David …” For the umpteenth time Jilly returned to Roche. “… she’s an old woman, and she’s lonely… and Lexy and La Goutard have sold you to her as the English d’Artagnan between them …. It would be a kindness just to have one drink with her—just one drink. She loves Englishmen, because of the war; and she’s still trying to love them, even after Suez, and the way we seem to have let down her nephew in Algeria. So it really would be a kindness.”

  Put like that it was an order. “Because of the war?”

  Jilly nodded. “She was on an escape line. It was Limoges-Brive-la-Gaillarde-Toulouse when things were going well. But it was Limoges-Château Peyrony-Toulouse when things became difficult. She may be an old witch, but she’s an old witch who can wear the MBE alongside her husband’s Croix-de-Guerre.”

  Put like that it wasn’t an order, it was an honour.

  “Besides which, David—David Audley—won’t be back from Cahors yet, so there’s no hurry,” said Jilly. “And even if Steffy’s not back we still don’t need to take the short-cut through the woods, over the top of the ridge. We can use your car—and we’ve got to use your car anyway, to shift your gear to the Tower if you’re going to pitch your tent there.”

  Put like that it was simple common-sense, apart from the honour and Jilly’s insistence.

  “Silly me!” muttered Lexy. “The gear—of course! And my face!” And fled into the cottage.

  Jilly led the way through the trees to a doorway in a wall. Then she halted and turned back to him.

  “Apart from which, David,I did have a male caller while you were rolling in the hay with Lexy. But not one of her teenage would-be rapists—in fact, he was looking for you.”

  “For me?”

  “Little fat Frenchman named Galles.” Jilly watched him. “He has a garage on the Les Eyzies road over the river—petrol and repairs and hire cars. He says he knows you.”

  Roche returned the stare. “You know him?”

  “Uh-huh. Or rather, Lexy knows him—she has a natural affinity for anyone who can help her to get filthy, particularly car mechanics. They met under the bonnet of David Audley’s car, to be precise.”

  A circumstantial coincidence, to be precise. “How did Audley
light on him? There must be garages closer to here than Les Eyzies?”

  Jilly smiled. “David dear, there’s nothing close to here—the Tower’s our next-door neighbour, and that’s over half a mile by the short-cut… But no, David Audley didn’t light on him—he’s one of Madame Peyrony’s special friends, ex-Resistance. He was in charge of the transport system from Limoges to Cahors, she was in charge of the midway safe house, that’s all. And ever since then he’s serviced her car and kept the generator going for the electric light, and because they’re both almost as antique as La Peyrony herself—the car and the generator—he’s a fairly regular visitor… Satisfied?”

  Not satisfied, but it would have to do. “What did he want?”

  “He’ll tell you himself. I told him you’d be back soon, and he said he’d be in the stables at the back of the house, where the car lives. If he isn’t, then you’re to phone him toute de suite—there’s a phone in the house, amazingly enough.” She paused. “You’ll note that I’m not asking any questions.”

  Roche nodded, trying to smile back. “You don’t want to know—very sensible!”

  “ ‘What you don’t know can’t hurt you’.” She stopped smiling. “I just wish I could believe that.”

  “Have you a reason for not believing it?”

  She considered him in silence for a moment. “I’ve never had anything to do with … your side of the business before, David.”

  “My side of the business is pretty dull most of the time. Probably duller than yours, Jilly.” It was a pity that the truth sounded so unconvincing.

  “I hope this is one of the duller times, then.”

  “I see no reason why it shouldn’t be.” The thought of Meriel Aspasia Stephanides (active, inform Central Records movements priority urgent) made that a black lie, as Ada Clarke would say. But it sounded no more unconvincing than the truth. “If I could tell you what London wants me to do I think you’d be … reassured, let’s say.” More truth. “You might even be rather amused.” Half-truth, anyway.

  “I can look after my own amusement.” She didn’t smile. “It’s just that … Lexy was right—we are rather isolated here. And there’s more than one way of being raped.” Another moment’s pause in which she took him apart piece by piece. “I wouldn’t like anything to happen to Steffy and Lexy … and Madame Peyrony and Gaston—and little Gaston.”

  He’d been wrong, she was scared. Or, he hadn’t been wrong at all, and she didn’t scare easily, she was brave—brave as Julie had been, not scared for herself, but worried to death about other people.

  (Julie, Julie—If only you hadn’t been so scared—so worried to death, literally worried to your death! If only you had waited, to let things work themselves out… then I wouldn’t be here—it would be some other poor damn Roche; it might even be Oliver St. John Latimer if there was no Roche to hand—and you wouldn’t be there, wherever you are, with bones of coral and pearls for eyes…)

  Roche smiled. “Once I’ve seen Raymond Galles, I can be at the Tower pretty soon after that—and then you won’t have to worry. I shall be David Audley’s problem then!”

  She gazed at him sadly. “I shall still worry.”

  “For heaven’s sake—why? I’ll be off your hands—and Lexy’s!”

  “I shall be worried for you.”

  “Why for me?”

  She drew a long breath. “Very well. Because you’re frightened.”

  Roche felt his grin sicken. It was his own fault for pushing so hard, but he couldn’t let the truth lie there in the open between them, unaccounted for.

  “Of course I’m frightened. I have an important job to do, and I’m frightened of failing. I don’t want to be the oldest captain in the British Army.”

  She half-closed her eyes. “I didn’t ask why.” When the eyes opened fully they were expressionless. “Let’s go and see this man Galles. And after that I’ll take you to Madame. And then we’ll drive to the Tower.”

  Roche followed her along a winding path through the trees. In the half-light the house ahead seemed bigger and gloomier than it had done when he had first glimpsed it as they’d approached the cottage, but perhaps that was only because he felt smaller and his own mood was even more sombre. He felt that Jilly’s instinct to get shot of him, to get her small part of the operation over and to extricate herself and her friends from him, was sound and reasonable. It was only a pity, and it disturbed him, that since Steffy was one of those friends she might not find the process of extrication so easy.

  And, as for himself, and what was more disturbing still… he had done so much, and learnt so much, and yet he hadn’t even started. He hadn’t even clapped eyes on David Longsdon Audley.

  There was a collection of smaller buildings, mostly single-storey, at the back of the house. As Jilly led the way through an archway in the tallest of them they resolved themselves into a courtyard of stables and gabled hay-lofts and what must have been a coach-house in the days of the horse. The great double-doors of the coach-house stood wide-open and yellow light streamed out of them, illuminating the herring-bone design of the brick-paved yard.

  Jilly pointed towards the light. “I’ll wait here,” she said. In the opening, half-concealed by one of the doors, stood a tiny corrugated Citroen, bearing the legend Raymond Galles et Fils in flowery white on faded Royal Navy Mediterranean grey, and Garagiste—Location de Voitures, with an indecipherable Les Eyzies-de-Tayrac telephone number beneath it, alongside Route D773. Roche had just started to squint at the telephone number to confirm that it was the same as that which Galles had given him that morning, when his eye was pulled away by the glitter of yellow light on gleaming silver to his right, further inside the coachhouse.

  Huge in the centre of the open space—dominating it, even though he was simultaneously aware that it was flanked by a great black coach with brass lamps at its ears—was an enormous car.

  Raymond Galles appeared suddenly on the far side of the car—the distant side, rather—next to a miniature searchlight fixed handy for the driver to manipulate to dazzle anyone outside the beams of the two almost full-size searchlights which sprouted from the sweeping front mudguards.

  Galles grinned at Roche, and the grin was repeated in his reflection in the deep polish of the maroon-coloured cellulose of the bonnet. Viewed along the line of the bonnet he appeared to be a long way off, and there wasn’t a speck of dust on the gleaming expanse of metal between him and Roche, though the cobwebs trailed from the naked electric bulb above him and festooned the carriage behind him.

  “Ah—M’sieur Roche!” Galles bobbed his head and disappeared again, to reappear eventually at the far—furthest—end of the car ahead of him, still grinning hugely.

  “And well-met, beside my beauty!” Galles touched the bonnet of the car lightly, and then instantly produced a snow-white rag from his back pocket to erase the touch. “Beside your namesake, one might say!”

  “My namesake?” Roche goggled from Galles to the Beauty, and back to Galles again.

  “You do not know? But Roche is a good French name—and yet also a common one, I grant you … But she—she is not common, you will grant me that, eh?”

  Roche blinked at him, and then edged sideways to get a sight on the curious chromium-plated (or silver-plated?) object on the top of the radiator. It looked a bit like the iceberg that had ripped open the Titanic, in size as well as shape, with an ornate ‘D’ imprinted on it for some unfathomable reason by the collision.

  “It’s not a … Daimler—“ that was obviously a stupid guess, though! “… or a Delage, maybe?” he hazarded.

  “Delarge—pouf! Daimler—phuttt!” Raymond Galles lifted his right forearm, with two fingers extended on its hand, and struck the crook of the arm a rabbit-punch with his left hand. “Rolls-Royce!”

  It clearly wasn’t a Rolls-Royce, from that gesture of ultimate contempt as well as the absence of the Rolls-Royce emblem, apart from the iceberg ‘D’.

  Roche wasn’t willing to try again. And
Galles was bursting to tell him, anyway.

  “A Delaroche—a Delaroche Royale!!” said Galles triumphantly.

  And Roche wasn’t going to say ‘Never heard of it’, either.

  Galles very nearly touched the Delaroche again, but thought better of it at the last moment.

  “Only three Royales were made. The first was for King Zog of Albania, as a gift from an American mining company—that was destroyed by Italian bombers in 1939.” Galles’ face twisted with the memory of the bomb-bursts. “The second was fragmented by German bombers in 1940—in the factory, while a minor modification was in progress—it was the property of the Prince de Coutrai …” the twist suggested this time that Galles held the Prince personally responsible for hazarding his Royale unnecessarily in the face of the enemy “…I salvaged the remains myself, and transported them to this very place, together with the pilot of a Blenheim bomber—a flight-lieutenant of the Royal New Zealand Air Force by the name of Robinson, who is now a librarian in the city of Auckland.” He nodded at Roche. “I remember that because he was my first allied aviator—it was in 1941—and the first to set foot in the Chateau Peyrony. Flight-Lieutenant Ashiballe Robinson—“

  Ashiballe?

  “Arrrchee for short—“

  Archibald!

  “And here—my beauty—“ once more the almost-touch, but not quite “—is the third and last and only Delaroche Royale in the whole world.” The little Frenchman beamed at Roche. “And that is a good omen for us both, m’sieur—a French Delaroche greets an English Roche, eh?”

  Oh—shit, thought Roche. Time was ticking away, and he still had to submit to Madame Peyrony, and here he was, snarled up with a monstrous vintage French car and its enthusiastic garagiste and locateur des voitures, for Christ’s sake!

  But he smiled nevertheless. “She’s a beauty, m’sieur.” Pause—one-two-three! “But you have an urgent message for me, I believe?”

  “But yes…”Galles peered past him. “Mademoiselle?”